vineri, 12 decembrie 2014

"And then began the tour of that strange building situated in a street that looked forbidding, although it was distinguished and not gloomy. As seen from the street the building was reminiscent of a German consulate in Melbourne. Its ground floor was entirely taken up with large stores. Although it was neither Sunday nor a holiday, the stores were closed, endowing this part of the street with an air of tedium and melancholy, a certain desolation, that particular atmosphere which pervades Anglo Saxon towns on Sundays. A slight smell of docks hung in the air; the indefinable and highly suggestive smell that emanates from dockside warehouses in ports. The German consulate-at-Melbourne look was a purely personal association on the part of Hebdomeros and when he mentioned it to his friends they smiled and found the comparison amusing, but they didn't dwell on the point, and immediately spoke of something else, which led Hebdomeros to decide that they had probably not grasped the meaning of what he had said. And he reflected on the difficulty of making yourself understood once you begin to develop at a certain height or depth. It's odd, Hebdomeros repeated to himself, the idea that something had escaped me would keep me awake, but most people can see, hear or read things which are totally obscure to them without feeling upset."